How to study the Bible article from disciplemagazine.com

How to Study the Bible
A Primer
Author: Bob Gerow
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Editor’s Note: This helpful overview of the principles of faithful study, interpretation, and application of God’s Word is adapted from Bob’s notes for the “Introduction to the Bible” module he teaches for Bryan College’s Aspire Program. It is, in many ways a distillation of “The Interpretive Journey” from the book Grasping God’s Word: 2nd Edition by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays (Zondervan 2005).

Biblical interpretation is the art, skill, or theory of discovering and understanding the biblical author’s intended meaning in the text. The technical term for this process is hermeneutics.

Preliminaries
1) Meaning is not up for grabs. The author wrote with a particular purpose in mind. The author’s intended meaning is to be discovered in the text, not imposed on the text. You have to find out what a passage means before you can understand what it means to you.

2) Bible Study is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. The proper outcome of Bible study is to know God better (John 17:3), and the resulting change in conduct.

3) Approach the “Interpretive Journey” as a set of elements in a process rather than as discrete steps that must be followed in rigid sequence. The general order is important, but some overlapping may be necessary as the discovery of meaning and of application develops.

4) Cross references, responsible commentaries, and reference works or sources will complement Bible study, but should never trump careful exploration of the Text itself.

With those guiding principles, you can begin a four-step process of interpretation that can be applied to any passage of Scripture.

Step One: How was the author communicating his message to and for the text’s first audience?
Examine the grammar & terminology. Look for sentence structure, unusual words or phrases, etc., that provide clues as to the author’s purpose in writing and the way he chooses to get the message across.

Study the case structure & style. Be mindful of literary devices (such as poetry, proverbs, parables, history, figures of speech, etc.), repetition, or themes employed to make “the main point” clear. The Bible is filled with different genres, and reading them all with the same mindset leads to misinterpretation (i.e. don’t read a poem with grandiose imagery as a technical manual).

Pay attention to context. Find out how a passage fits into and relates to the larger textual context(s) in which it appears. Context can be textual (e.g. the meaning of 1 Corinthians 13 in the context of Paul’s arguments in chapters 12-14) or historical (e.g. the meaning of Psalm 51 in the context of David’s sin and Nathan’s rebuke recorded in 2 Samuel 11-12).

In one or two sentences, summarize what is going on in the passage. Ask what the substance of the author’s message is. How was the message “heard” or “read” by its first audience? Into what personal, religious, social, historical, or other contexts was the message first delivered?

Step Two: Then and Now—Similarities & differences between that first audience and today’s
Identify all the ways in which your situation today differs from that of the first audience. How might those differences help or hinder you as you try to correctly grasp the author’s main point? Are you likely to “read” or “hear” the message differently because of differing priorities, lifestyles, contexts, cultures, history, or even our familiarity with the Bible itself?

Identify any similarities between the situation faced by the first audience, and what we face. How might those similarities influence how we read or hear the author’s message?

Step Three: The Main Thing—What is the central principle stated in the text?
There is generally only one central theme or message (“principle”) in a given passage—its “punch line.” What is the central principle, theme, or message in the passage you are considering? Why do you think so?

How does your exploration in Step One support your conclusion? What (if any) discoveries made in Step Two need to be factored into how we hear the message? How can we make sure we have correctly understood the author’s main point?

Step Four: Application—What difference does it make? So What?
Bible study without application misses the point. If I have correctly grasped the main point, what difference must it make in how I am to live my life? “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (James 1:22).

Bob Gerow is development administrator for AMG International in Chattanooga, Tenn.

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